Arts Lab

In conversation: ‘snapshots of time’ with resident artist Anna Boland

Arts Lab’s winter experimenter, Anna Boland, tells us about her experiments capturing snapshots of time. For more about her residency see Projects & Experiments.

SDL: What are you doing here at Arts Lab?

AB: I’m undertaking a period of experimentation within my practice. Over the winter months, the space will enable me to explore 3D processes to consider moments in time and begin to take my work into 4D using digital projection.

SDL: Can you explain in a bit more detail more about your process?

AB: Science states a “jiffy” is considered to be 1/100th of a second. It is a common everyday term often heard or said “be back in a jiffy” which simply means a moment or quickly. It has been suggested that a jiffy cannot be defined relative to other units of time, it is separate, dissociated and different from the way other units are measured and definitions vary between different fields of study. Currently I have been focusing on the jiffy and those fleeting moments, specifically focusing on 1 minute of time. If 100 jiffies is equal to 1 second then 6000 jiffies is equal to 1 minute. I am working towards casting small scale jiffy bags as a representation of the “jiffy” and to develop ideas of “perfect moments” and what that is – casting 6000 jiffies each one perfect in its imperfection, and exploring the duration of 1 minute.

SDL: Why are you doing this and who for? Is it at this stage more about exploring new processes, or do you also want to convey some sort of message?

AB: Both. Why I’m making them is because time is embedded in everyting we do. It’s in our everyday language whether we like it or not – Time is an expansive subject that artists and scientists are forever testing, exploring and theorising. As a society we put so much focus on time, it is embedded in our everyday language whether we are aware of it or not. The phrases – time is money, time heals all wounds, time flies when you’re having fun, third time’s a charm, making up for lost time, behind the times, killing time, in the nick of time; are part of our everyday, and focus on human emotions and desires of wanting, regret, enjoyment, validation and perfection.Time is an unseen invisible force and a constant reminder of our existence. I’m ulitmately interested in exploring time and the in-between.

SDL: What’s the in-between?

AB: The unseen, those perfect moments, those perfect imperfections that pass us by, invisible fleeting moments in time that are forgotten or overlooked, the in-between time and space.

SDL: How then, exactly, are you hoping to convey this to your audiences in a way that engages?

AB: Through a process of exploration, I hope to develop interactive environments – immersive Installations that are durational to provoke thought in audiences, to make the viewer question time and moments in time and think about perfect moments and what that means to them.